68 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER \. 



did and valuable discoveries, extended only over a space of 

 not quite thirty years. He had not completed his fifty-first 

 year when he died. Nor was Davy merely a man of science 

 His general acquirements were diversified and extensive. He 

 was familiar with the principal continental languages, and wrote 

 his own with an eloquence not usually found in scientific works. 

 All his writings, indeed, show the scholar, and the lover ot 

 elegant literature, as well as the ingenious and accomplished 

 philosopher. It not unfrequently happens that able men, who 

 have been their own instructors, and have chosen for themselves 

 some one field of exertion in which the world acknowledges, 

 and they themselves feel, their eminence, both disregard and 

 despise all other sorts of knowledge and acquirement. This 

 is pedantry in its most vulgar and offensive form ; for it is not 

 merely ignorant, but intolerant. It speaks highly in favour of 

 the right constitution and the native power of Davy's under- 

 standing, that educated as he was, he escaped every taint of 

 this species of illiberality ; and that while, like almost all those 

 who have greatly distinguished themselves in the world of 

 intellect, he selected and persevered in his one favourite path, 

 he nevertheless revered wisdom and genius in all their mani- 

 festations. 



